I've moved twelve times in my life, so far and that's just average. How many times have YOU moved?
Moving Tales, Adventures in Relocation is an anthology of true stories about moving. You'll enjoy reading about other people who relocated and re-motivated after their moving adventures.
For instance, the disastrous move Connie Power and her family went through...
A Murphy’s Law Move
By Connie Power
Of the seventeen moves my husband and I made in our thirty
years of marriage, one was particularly memorable.
My husband and I had just sold our larger house in
Arlington, Texas and were excited about an anticipated move to Colleyville. Our
two oldest children were in college and our youngest would be starting his
senior year of high school in the fall. We could now purchase a comfy, smaller
home and trade time spent attending youth sports activities and doing yard work
for more time for the two of us to pursue our own interests. We were very
excited about discovering just what those might be!
Our pert, super-efficient, female real estate agent had done
a remarkable job selling the house for us. She knew it well because she had
sold it to us six years before. Knowing our propensity for relocating, she had
kept in touch, driving over from her office in Grapevine each Christmas to
deliver a very handsome gift. No stale fruitcakes from Julie Ann! She was, however,
extremely vexed that she had been unable to find a house for us to purchase
yet, but I had assured her that we could manage in a nice apartment for a month
or two while we kept looking for a house.
Moving day arrived and while we waited for the expensive
hourly movers to arrive, my husband was on his computer, giving away as many of
our belongings as possible, so we wouldn’t have to pay to move them, store
them, and move them again. Since we thought we would be buying another home
within a month or two, we decided to use PODS, which are portable storage
containers. Theoretically, your belongings can stay in the rented POD at the storage
location until needed, saving wear and tear on furniture and other treasured possessions.
The man in charge of our move was Tony. The man had sworn up
and down that he and his crew were experts
at loading PODS. I had insisted on hiring the movers myself because my husband
might have hired someone incompetent . . .
This is a good place to interject that while in the middle
of last minute packing the day before, I had just found out that our oldest
son, Justin, would be in from UT that weekend. He had to take the train from
Austin to Ft. Worth because we had taken away his car (long story). I had no
idea why he wanted to come for a visit, but didn’t give the matter much
thought. I had more important things on my mind.
That drizzly morning, before the movers arrived, I walked
one of our friends out to her car, apologizing that my husband had already
given away the bookcase she wanted. Our driveway was on a steep incline (a
hill, really) and the combination of my flat tennis shoes with rubber soles,
the wet pavement, and my inattention, produced a disastrous effect.
Suddenly my
feet flew out from under me and my entire body was catapulted against the
concrete. As I lay on the driveway, struggling to stay conscious, I somehow
managed to reassure my friend I was all right. But I was far from all right.
I don’t remember how my husband found out what had happened.
He was inside the house, still trying to give away our stuff, but I do remember
asking him in a weak voice to call an ambulance.
I honestly thought I had broken my tailbone. Somehow, I had
managed to scoot a couple of inches onto the wet grass, where I battled nausea
and loss of consciousness. While waiting there for the ambulance and the
expensive hourly movers, a morbid thought crossed my mind.
Is this it? Is this
how I’m destined to meet my Maker? Wet,
broken, and waiting on yet another moving van?
The ambulance finally arrived. After the X-ray in the
hospital showed nothing was broken, I asked to be released as soon as
possible. I needed to be at home to oversee the movers, though I still couldn’t
stand up straight or lift anything.
My husband was home, in the midst of the move, so he sent
our son, Justin, to pick me up at the hospital—an action that did nothing to
relieve my stress level. But eventually I was back home—which is when the day
actually got worse.
As I mentioned before, Tony was the supposed “brains” of the
moving operation. But the man kept getting into long conversations with anyone
about anything that would keep him from working or paying attention to
important details.
Then it finally dawned on me why our son had come in from
college that weekend. He thought he might be able to get his car back from us
(long story). Fat chance. So my
husband had to leave in the middle of everything to take him back to the train
station.
Next, I discovered that the movers had placed our boxes of
breakable items on the bottom of the stacks in the POD. Our expensive leather
couch was packed standing on its arm!
That night, many hours after the whole moving fiasco should
have been over, one of the movers fell through the roof in the garage! Thankfully,
he wasn’t hurt. But I sure wanted to hurt someone.
After about a month, things were looking up. The pain in my
tailbone and spine subsided. We hired different guys to unload our PODs and
moved them to a house we’d leased short term. However, our “short term” leasing
situation lasted for over a year.
But the good news is, a few months later we let Justin have
his car back.
Linda Kozar is the
co-author of Babes With A Beatitude—Devotions For Smart, Savvy Women of
Faith (Hardcover/Ebook, Howard/Simon & Schuster 2009) and author of Misfortune
Cookies (Print, Barbour Publishing 2008), Misfortune Cookies, A
Tisket, A Casket, and Dead As A Doornail, (“When The Fat Ladies Sing
Series,” eBooks, Spyglass Lane Mysteries, 2012). Strands of Fate released
October 2012 (Hardcover/Ebook, Creative Woman Mysteries) and her nonfiction title,
Moving Tales, Adventures in Relocation, released in 2013
(Indie-Published). She received the ACFW Mentor of the Year Award in 2007,
founded and served as president of Writers
On The Storm, The Woodlands, Texas ACFW chapter for three years. In 2003,
she co-founded, co-directed and later served as Southwest Texas Director of Words For The Journey Christian Writers
Guild. She and her husband Michael, married 24 years, have two lovely
daughters, Katie and Lauren and a Rat Terrier princess named Patches.
Represented by: Wendy Lawton, Books & Such Literary Agency
Member of: CAN (Christian
Authors Network), RWA (Romance Writers of American), WHRWA (West Houston
Romance Writers of America), ACFW (American Christian Fiction Writers), Writers
On The Storm, The Woodlands, Texas Chapter of ACFW, Toastmasters (Area 56) The
Woodlands, Texas, The Woodlands Church, The Woodlands, TX.
Linda Kozar is
the author of six books. Her latest, titled “Moving Tales, Adventures in
Relocation,” is a collection of stories from people who experienced the good,
the bad and the ugly when they moved. www.lindakozar.com http://bookishdesires.blogspot.com
No comments:
Post a Comment